Tag: Improving Performance

Autumn is the season for making changes, starting new projects and pursuing new goals. Students, startups and job seekers know that can be hard work.

I know how overwhelming change can seem with so many moving parts to think about. So, I’m going to suggest 3 steps to overcome the overwhelm problem and get your smile back:

Accept Your Feelings

If your new project feels nightmare-ish work out how to break down your big goal into more manageable chunks. When we aren’t struggling life feels better. Start completing those smaller steps and you will feel more in control of your situation.

Build Your Network

Take time to connect to people who you can help and who can help you. Reduce the number of people in your world who drain your energy and frustrate your focus.

Celebrate Your Progress

I know it is obvious, but sometimes we don’t notice we are improving and downplay positive feedback. We should be hungry to receive constructive feedback and able to feel good about the significant improvements we start to make once we get going.

What’s Your Next Move?

Obviously, these are tasters of bigger themes and it isn’t easy to put these 3 steps into practice. It is worth it though. Give it a go and feel free to comment on how things work out. Like and Share too so others can benefit too.

Take A Few Minutes To Discover Your Next Step – Image Riccardo Bresciani at Pexels dot com

Everyone is busy these days, although some of us have already enjoyed a few vacation days this summer. Some others are looking forward to their holiday in the sun. Here’s a thought: How many of us understand the stresses and strains we carry around while we are busy leading our 9 to 5 lives as leaders, managers, entrepreneurs or creatives?

Good news, there is a way we can achieve a better understanding of ourselves at work, at home, or on a mountain top.

How To Get Clarity Over Your Goals In 5 Minutes

I’ve found five minutes of mindfulness a day can help answer the question, what should I be doing next? What does my approach involve?

Sitting with a straight back, eyes closed

Breathing deeply from the diaphragm

Relaxing shoulders, arms and legs

Tuning out the sounds around me

Noticing what I am feeling in my head, heart and gut

Finding a way to use all that information after my five minutes are up and I feel refreshed

What would five minutes a day of mindfulness do for you today? How about over the next week? Take a moment to write down and share your answer. Feel free to message your discovery on Twitter @RogerD_Said You can Like and Share the post too, if it has been helpful.

So the Olympics are here once again and I’ve been thinking about all the effort that lays behind being ready to achieve peak performance. Team GB have worked hard to be third in the medal tables. Watching a team member achieve a personal best, or an Olympic record in just a few seconds is only part of the story.

Here’s A Thought Experiment

Imagine yourself standing on the edge of the 10 metre Olympic diving board.

You tune out the hundreds of people in the aquatic centre. You don’t think about the millions watching at home. Your team mates and coach have helped you stand ready to perform at your best.

You breathe deeply. Then you spring off the board and tuck into your dive. Your thoughts are focused on your goal. You know you are going to achieve a perfect result. You perform twists and turns like nothing else matters, because nothing else does. You enter the deep water and you come back to the surface. You are buzzing with the feeling of achievement. You did your best.

How easy was it to focus on your outcome? Could you tune out all the background noise?

How To Start Paying Attention To Your Goal

I am not an Olympian, few people are, but I think we can all strive to achieve our main goal, if we are clear what aspect of our performance requires attention.

Sir Dave Brailsford (Principal of British cycling’s Team Sky) and coach has a theory about this. He believes that by concentrating on making a large number of small changes to improve performance, the net gain is significant. Each step is a marginal gain. Those steps correspond to the gradual process of becoming consciously competent at life.

I know background noise and life’s pressures can seem overwhelming. They can crowd out the internal messages which tell me it is time to change. However, once I have decided what I want to achieve (and when I want to achieve it) I can set a goal. That goal will help me move forward. The goal today was to write this post from scratch to share some information with you. I started with a blank page and here I am putting the finishing touches to it.

Getting started was hard. The next few steps were easier. Maybe the same is true for you?

How To Get Started

If you want to work out where you can focus your attention today is a good day to start. Why not start improving your wellbeing, strengthening your team working skills, or begin creating client-pleasing results now. There is plenty of support at hand (so you don’t have to feel isolated).

Your first step is easy. Head over to the Members’ area and download a free tool to help you start to reach your goal. If you want to share your progress you can leave fa reply with your comments below (or Tweet me @RogerD_Said ). Don’t forget to Like this post, or Share it to help others get started on their way.

Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for more ideas about doing what you need to so you can move toward your goal.

Start Change With The Man In The Mirror – Picture From Jusben From Morguefile.com

True story.

One Thursday morning commuting on the train, I picked up a copy of Shortlist magazine left on the seat next to me. Flicking through the pages of the latest shiny, products I was expecting I got emotionally ambushed by Andrew Dickens’ deeply personal story about depression* (there’s a link below).

I couldn’t finish reading this unexpected article in public. It struck a chord. It was too emotional for a Men’s lifestyle magazine.

Bottom line: I didn’t want to be upset in front of other people.

Men and boys face unbelievable pressure

Fast forward to now and according to the Standard newspaper almost half the men in London feel like crying once a month* (more than anywhere else in the country).

The emotional challenge isn’t a London thing. It is universal. There is just something challenging about being a 21st Century man.

The Movember Foundation understands that. The Foundation is a global charity committed to men living happier, healthier and longer lives. You might be aware of their November campaign to encourage men to grow mustaches for the cause.

Interviewed by The Standard their UK director Sarah Coghlan said

Men and boys face unbelievable pressure to live up an archaic stereotype of what it means to be a man, and in the process they neglect their own mental and physical health.

Release The Pressure

It is ok to feel what you are feeling.

In fact neglecting your health has bad consequences. I have coached guys who have been tearful with frustration about their lack of career progress, or lack of life purpose. Who wants to feel drained by the demands of their working day?

List the worst-case consequences if you continue to do nothing about it

Write down all the results that could come your way if you take action

Decide who is the best person to talk to about tackling that goal (doctor, therapist, coach)

Get in touch with that person and start making your life better

Want To Start Changing The Way You Experience Work?

If you are ready to start improving your life you can click the link, leave your contact details and download a FREE report. It will help you pay attention to your self improvement goals and get you connected to someone who can help you move forward.

Is Your Performance Going Up Or Down This Year? (Image under creative common licence from Morguefile.com)

This year, like every year, thousands of civil servants made the Government’s presentation of the Budget seem effortless. Behind the scenes collaborations, across the various departments, over many weeks came together smoothly yesterday. Meaning that as the Chancellor sat down, a comprehensive suite of Budget publications appeared online.

How will some of those civil servants feel, should they now learn that they ‘must improve’ their performance to meet their work objectives? It is a knock to one’s self-confidence to be judged in that way by a line manager. More so if that outcome bucks the trend of years of evidence-based good performance.

Guidance on ranking staff for appraisal purposes

This year a ‘must improve’ judgement will flow from the strict application of guidance in the new Civil Service Appraisal system. The system is one part of Civil Service Reform (whose goal is delivering better services for less money).

The guidance – available to managers across different Departments, Directorates and teams – is to use the sector-wide appraisal system to determine who has had a successful year. The system seems to mean that appraisal markings can be distributed along a curve. On that curve approximately:

20 % of staff in a grade will have exceeded their objectives

70 % will have achieved expected outcomes

10% must improve

One appraisal system but two perspectiveson how it works

The dialogue around performance management is led by the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake. He has blogged about the new performance management system, which he believes, reflects consistency across the organisation and looks at what civil servants achieve and how they achieve it.

Many Senior Civil Service (SCS) staff and their junior colleagues have replied to the blog (although it seems the distribution curve does not to apply to members of the SCS). In unusually frank replies staff express their views about the system’s apparent use of quotas and its effect on morale. They also note that HMRC staff downed tools over this issue in February. So seemingly there is one appraisal system, but two perspectives on how it works.

It is also worth noting there may be an impact on workplace equality, since the sector employs more women than men below SCS level. Black and minority ethnic staff, and disabled staff, are also concentrated in the grades where must improve ratings will appear.

3 steps to take when your manager says your work must improve

Are you someone whose performance ‘must improve’ this year? How about rising to that challenge? Once that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach subsides, you should focus on moving forward. Here are 3 actions to help you to move forward beyond your appraisal:

Record the specifics of your strategy to take an immediate, positive, next step to achieve a short-term win (something constructive you know you can do well, within your present role, or one that allows you to reassert your ability to achieve good quality results)

Recruit a skilled ally, ideally a coach who: understands the significance of your work-life goals; recognises the importance of your values; will remain supportive as your performance returns to its former state.

Civil Servant or not, how will you improve the quality of your work this year? Why not dip into the Archives, to the right of this post, to get some inspiration as you move forward.